


Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

by Silver (snakejolras)



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Past, basically how everyone got to graceland, bisexual!Mike, bisexual!Paige, pansexual!Johnny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakejolras/pseuds/Silver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has their path to grace. Background ficlets for each character from their life up to being assigned to Graceland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

**i own nothing xoxo**

* * *

 

Washington is only interesting if you work for the government or you’re on vacation. That’s the basic consensus anyway, that many people who were older than Mike had told him time and time again. The hype wears off, the city and the notoriety fades and you get to the point you just want to get along with your business. The little boy would frown, not fully believing how a city with such amazing places and people could be boring, but he’d nod and pretend to understand. It’s not as if he could have a solid idea, the city itself he’d only been in for everyday, casual things, errands his mother brought him along for. His father was a busy man and his mother was more interested in staying home than doing much else, and an army base was a bit too strict for a child to sneak out of to be rebellious. He didn’t have any of his own first hand experience of anything outside of the opinions of soldiers and their families to go on, and they all seemed a bit disenchanted. He started to succumb to the idea that he should listen to them, but then there was his grandfather’s stories, and all of his excitement would fly up again.

 

He had a lot of them, the amount of history he’d seen was something of an amazement. His grandfather had been ten when John Dillinger was caught for the first time, and told him of everything that followed leading to his death. He’d gotten immersed then, and the things he knew more sharply as he grew older were even more phenomenal, with forty years of photographic journalism behind him. He’d seen when Kennedy was assassinated, taken photographs of all the civil movements that helped move and change the country in amazing ways over the sixties and seventies, and only passed up Vietnam to take pictures of equality rather than war. All of this and the specific stories and people that lied within it was enough to put stars in a little boy’s eyes, and make him keep his hopes alive. He wanted to believe in heroes, and love, and stories of realism that had happy endings, and he wanted to believe he could reach them.

 

Except, at the time that was impossible. He was a seven year old living at Fort McNair with bustling parents and his only times away were school or and his grandparents. So he worked within his limits instead. It dawned on him quickly that he was, in fact, surrounded by heroes who had stories that they would share. Not everyone he would ask or talk to would appreciate him, as direct as he was, and complain to his father whenever they got the chance, but others humoured him enough to tell him the good things they could while leaving out the nasty bits. It kept Mike plenty appeased, if only for a short time. Like until a fifth grade field trip that ended in him sneaking off, and quickly learning to never do it again.

* * *

 

 

“Do we have to do this?” He’s eleven, casually putting his weight on his right leg and looking a bit like he’s been forced to watch paint dry. “We’ve been doing this forever.”

 

“Well maybe if you stand up straight for once you’d get somewhere.” The other voice is gruff, clearly annoyed and not at all withstanding. “And yes, we do.”

He puts a hand on the middle of Mike’s back and he immediately evens out his posture, craning his neck a bit, holding the gun back up at the paper silhouette of a target, wincing a bit trying to pretend like it doesn’t bother him that they are made to look like people. His father comes up more directly behind him and Mike tenses up more, trying to concentrate as the older man speaks. “Better the gun in your hands than someone else’s that’s pointing it at you. If you’re going to be a soldier, you should do your best to remember that.”

 

Mike swallows, ignoring the itching in his throat, the one that screams _But I’m not a soldier, I don’t want to be a soldier, I don’t think I can be._ blinks hard enough that he thinks he can feel some veins tense, opens them again and squeezes the trigger.

* * *

 

 

He’s fourteen when his grandmother dies, and he’s really not sure how to take it. He’s not sure if his logic doesn’t fit, but he’s pretty sure it doesn’t. She had dementia, she was sick for years and deteriorating since he was nine, she spent her last few weeks in a hospital bed, but it still feels like a fresh wound he never saw coming. Maybe it just scared him, the entire concept of death, but he knew getting out of bed wasn’t anything enticing.

 

This wasn’t exactly the first time he’d been around death, and not the first time he’d been so affected. The first was minimal, one of his first grade friends had a dog that was hit by a car, and she was absolutely devastated, so he felt her mourning. He started bringing her things, candy and flowers off the playground, little things until he thought she felt better, and his mother when she heard had merely taken it as him wanting to impress a girl in his class, but it wasn’t the only time. Living on a military base caused you to see and meet people and watch them leave and then never see them again. Mike learned from a young age that someone leaving could easily mean they were never coming back, and he made a promise to himself to never be numb of that fact. Feeling it was better than not.

 

Those were his thoughts anyway, though there was an obvious disagreement, including his father’s constant need to tell him to get over it, that it helped absolutely nothing. He didn’t see how that was possible, like that insisted life meant nothing and the thought alone was enough to anger him. His grandfather had intercepted something which could have blown up, speaking to him instead.

 

“You’re allowed to be upset, don’t let him tell you otherwise.” His grandfather sighed, like a man trying to push away his own sadness for a brief moment to push away another’s. “But that doesn’t mean you need to stop living. Do both. That’s what your grandmother would want you to do.”

 

Mike raised a brow, searching his face. “And is that what you’re doing?”

 

The elderly man smiled so that his eyes crinkled, and he looked away. “I am trying. That’s the best you can do.”

 

The phrase rung in Mike’s head for a few days, _The best you can do._ He couldn’t tell if it was a hopeful promise or an apology, and he still hasn’t found out.

* * *

 

 

The first real time he and his father get in a fight he’s seventeen. Not a disagreement or slight conflict, but a full on, fiery fight where neither pulls any punches.

 

It’s when he gets home from school, after his girlfriend stares at him like he’s had a stroke. “You’re not going to college?”

 

Mike blinks, not looking up at her, barely pushing out his answer. “No.”

 

She keeps staring at him, considering hitting him if they weren’t in the middle of a French classroom. “You?”

 

He sighs, finally looking up at her. “Yeah, so?”

 

“Well, your GPA is perfect and your test scores are insane, you could go anywhere you want. And we both know what you want to do. So wouldn’t that imply college?”

 

Mike stares back at her for a moment before biting his lip, taking a breath and looking back down at his notes. “My dad wants me to join the military, so that’s what I’m going to do.” It sounds forced, rehearsed, and this time she resigns to kicking him lightly under the desks.

 

“You’re really going to let that stop you? It’s your life, not his.” There’s a pause, a small yet pointed grumbling of _Mike_ and _Sarah_ coming from the front of the classroom, and they both wait until the French begins back up and she starts more to a whisper,  “Or you can just spend the rest of your life miserable and bitter.” She smiles a bit, sickeningly sweet to the point he rolls his eyes. “Your choice.”

 

It’s the thing to finally make him realize it is. That he doesn’t have to appease his father’s every whim, especially when he knows how very problematically flawed that is. He just needed someone to help give him that push, and finally he says it, first to his mother.

 

“I’ve been applying to colleges all day. A few in Virginia, here of course, even a couple in Massachusetts, I figured I should keep as many options on the table.”

 

She looks at him as if that needed a segway before sighing and shaking her head, looking away. “What did he do?”

 

“What?”

 

“Well clearly you’re trying your hardest to cause conflict. You’re graduating this year you should be more focused on your schoolwork that you need than just trying to bother him.”

 

He sighs, closing his eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “This isn’t a firestarter, I’m doing what I want to do. Not what he wants.”

 

Their conversation ends there, and begins almost simultaneously the same way with his father except this time it continues, with nearly a growl from the older man. “You’re seventeen, you don’t know what you want.”

 

“Yes, and you do, obviously. You can’t control what I do.” Mike isn’t sure how those words fly out so quickly, so flatly until they rise with more conviction, but they do nonetheless and the look he gets in return is threatening.

 

“You’re living in my house, last time I checked.”

 

Mike raises a brow, staring him down in equal measure. “I don’t have to be.”

 

“Yeah, and where are you going to go? Live with your grandfather so he can fill your head with more nonsense that makes you think you can make a difference or help anything sitting in a building?”

 

He holds a breath, trying to hold back, and instead steeling himself and swallowing with the readiness to run. “Better that than being a heartless, controlling bastard, I think. But I guess that’s a conflict of opinions on our part.” He pushes his own legs to move and walk out of the door as quickly as possible, ignoring whatever may be said as he does, and Sarah’s parents let him sleep on their couch. He comes back the next day after school, and nothing changes except the tension rate threatening to crack at any moment. He tries not to smile at the fact that he won.

* * *

 

It turns out he can’t get into any place he wants, but he gets into quite a few. He ends up in Virginia, and while her advice is respected and sticks Sarah takes her own path away from him before they even graduate. He majors in criminal justice, and he’s not exactly the social college type.

 

He tries, he does, he’s just not good at parties and he’s so afraid he’ll make a mistake. He becomes friends with classmates mostly, a few professors too, and the only relationship he finds himself in is with his roommate, and for the first few years they’re fine. It’s easier to love someone when you live with them, just not when there is a clash of mutual interest.

 

Mostly it’s friendly, David has his own sky high goal, wants to travel the world and write as he pleases, and Mike has his. It’s a mutual agreement, they both choose their dreams over each other, in almost a bittersweet way, but it leaves Mike disenchanted with love while he’s still working toward his plans. He wants someone permanent, someone he knows he can keep because they meet on that level, and he doesn’t have to lose anyone more. So he pushes himself further away, focusing on his work and his work alone.

 

They stay roommates until they graduate, and they stay friends no matter what, and Mike tries to ignore the voice ringing in his head. _The best you can do._

* * *

 

 

Quantico is more like winning a prize to him than it is training, something that he’s been working on too long to complain about anything, no matter how hard it gets. He makes more friends there, people with similar interests and aspirations where they don’t get bored of hearing you after so long. It’s easier, a calm.

 

Until he gets a phone call, that is.

 

It’s his mother, telling him the things that were being hidden from him, supposedly for his own good. His grandfather had been sick for the past few years, a heart condition that wasn’t going away, and he’d chosen to never tell Mike a word of it, up to the point it was too late for him to even say goodbye at all.

 

There was a snapping, not like the other losses he had but an opposite, a shutdown. It mattered, it mattered too much to the point if he were to show it fully he’s not sure he’d be able to function, so he focused himself on working, up to the point he forgot he had to do anything else. Until it faded, enough that he could manage again, up to where he was able to graduate and breathe, and smile about it and now he was doing it in respect, it felt like what he could do.

 

And he told himself this is enough, what it led up to was enough to push pain away and be happy. There is a moment of pause to regain himself, regain that feeling when the director speaks to him, trying to ignore the sudden mystery in everything that had been planned out so very well. He blinks, trying to hold back his disappointment bubbling up, and he asks politely and softly.

 

“What’s Graceland?”

* * *

**contact;** snakejolras @ tumblr


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